Karaoke Bacchae
Project Description:
An adaptation of the Euripides tragedy, imagined in a sports bar on karaoke night during the Stanley Cup. Taking the human form of Iggy Pop, the god Dionysus and chorus of drunken sorority girls into a battle of submission for control of the karaoke machine against the bars sado-masochistic management. The play is performed under the ultimate karaoke playlist, driven by dance and media and collages original text and found text from sources including deranged sorority girl email, 50 Shades of Gray, and a sexually frustrated drunken high school english teacher.
An adaptation of the Euripides tragedy, imagined in a sports bar on karaoke night during the Stanley Cup. Taking the human form of Iggy Pop, the god Dionysus and chorus of drunken sorority girls into a battle of submission for control of the karaoke machine against the bars sado-masochistic management. The play is performed under the ultimate karaoke playlist, driven by dance and media and collages original text and found text from sources including deranged sorority girl email, 50 Shades of Gray, and a sexually frustrated drunken high school english teacher.
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Project History
Karaoke Bacchae's development began at Sarah Lawrence College in the MFA Theater Practicum under the guidance of Dan Hurlin, David Neumann and Cezar Alverez. Over the course of the 2012-13 academic year, Jesse Freedman presented three selections of work-in-progress (10-20 minutes). (Photos from La Mama Club reading)
A Subsequent revisions of the the script was generated based on audience feedback that contains less of Euripdes’ text was brought in to workshops in December 2015. A developing ensemble starting meeting for monthly workshop rehearsals focusing on choreography and character. We have started to look at broad stroke choreographic ideas, around frenzy, drunken falling, “to Fonzie” and weigh sharing. This workshop also been developing characters and relationships that where underdeveloped in the previous draft of the script. |
(Photo's from Sarah Lawrence Workshop)
In October 2014 a concert reading of the complete script was presented at La Mama Club, produced by Eugene Lange Colleges "Alumnight", curated by Zishan Urgulu. The script includes song parodies, transcripts from a interview with a drunk and sexually frustrated high school English teacher and texts from popular culture sources; and was sung or spoken to karaoke songs. (Photos from December Workshop Rehearsals)
Karaoke Baccha is currently seeking partners for its next phase of development, a workshop production or full production |
